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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2007Bernice MosbyKim MulkeyJhasmin PlayerOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome the Bears from Baylor University. Coach Mulkey-Robertson, would you like to make a few comments? Congratulations on tonight's win, and comments about tonight's game and your next opponent, please. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Thank you. I would I would like to make a couple of statements about this particular basketball team at Baylor. They hadn't won a national championship. We have two from that team still remaining. But they've done some pretty amazing things this year and I'd like to share those with you and make sure you put them down. They broke a Big 12 single season block record tonight, from what I've been told. No other Baylor team has done that. There's only three teams that have more top 50 wins in the country than Baylor. Do you know who they are? Tennessee, Duke and Yukon. That's pretty impressive, guys, for a young group. Now, to talk about tonight's game, as you all follow the games, men's and women's side, you always see upsets. There's only four of us remaining. We finished third in the league. We haven't been beaten this year by any team we should lose to. Every loss we've had has been to a ranked opponent. So I'm proud of them. We understand what lies ahead tomorrow. It's not going to be any fun playing Oklahoma in their backyard here in Oklahoma City, but I do have a great appreciation for the fans that I saw here tonight supporting their teams. And with that, I'll let you guys ask me some questions. Q. Coach, did it feel pretty good to get the lead and not only get a chance to rest your starters but give some of those young girls a chance to play? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: The more we can play our freshmen and the players that contribute off the bench for our team, the better. And I thought we were able to do that early in the game. And sometimes when you do that, you lose the flow of the game. You lose leads, and I thought tonight we were able to hang on to the leads and extend it at times. Q. Kim, it's been a week since you guys had those two straight losses. I know they were tough losses. Was it good to see them come out and really play well both ends of the floor? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Those two losses were to who? Two pretty good teams. I hate the schedule fell the way it did because we ended up playing those teams back to back twice this year. My personality as a coach is don't ever let them get too high. Don't ever let them get too low. Keep it in perspective and keep working. And I thought they responded and did just that, and I thought it started on the defensive end tonight. I thought in those losses at times we got frustrated and we totally forgot the team concept on defense when we would get beat in a one-on-one situation. And I thought tonight we got back to the basics defensively. I thought Jessica Morrow quietly set the tone fighting for screens and just being a leader out there for us. Q. Kim, what's it going to take to beat OU tomorrow? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Courtney probably getting sick tonight, not being able to play. Couple of them get in foul trouble and foul out early. The fans not show up because they're caught in traffic. I could name a lot of things. Look, guys, nobody has figured it out really yet on how to guard Courtney and how to beat them other than Texas A&M and -- who else beat them this year in our league? Texas. We're going to do the best we can. We are going to fight and claw and hopefully try to keep it as close as we can with the understanding that we know we're not supposed to win. But we weren't supposed to win the national championship either. Q. Can you talk a little bit about I guess the rivalry that's starting to develop between you and Oklahoma and I guess how it's the last chapter in that rivalry with that loss last week in Norman. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: I don't look at our rivalry with Oklahoma any different than I do with Texas or Texas A&M. They may, but I don't. It's just another Big 12 game and they happen to be the champions this year. And they've had a great year. Q. I have one for Bernice and then one for Jhasmin. Bernice, what are the benefits in the tournament to get some rest tonight, get them to watch the second half, be a cheerleader? Tournaments night after night, it's a benefit. What do you think it'll do for you to get some rest tonight? BERNICE MOSBY: I think it's important for me to get some rest knowing that we're going to play Oklahoma, just to rest my legs. And I'm just happy for this team, that the freshmen and people who came off the bench came in, stepped up big for me to get rest on the bench. When you get rest in a game like this, it's very -- it helps you in a niche game just to have legs under you and try to play even harder. Q. Kim, a lot of people would say that's a finals outfit. What goes into your decision-making to wear an outfit into the quarter finals tonight? (Laughter) COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: What in the hell does that have to do with basketball? (Laughter) BERNICE MOSBY: My coach looked good tonight, y'all. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: I don't know, man. I just thought that was good enough to wear. I don't know. (Laughter). COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Would you ask those questions of Bobbie Knight? You wouldn't dare. Q. This is for the players. Did Coach kind of challenge y'all to step it up on defense? Maybe just talk a little bit about the defense tonight. JHASMIN PLAYER: That's exactly what she did. We got to practice this week and worked extremely hard on the defensive end, mainly on the defensive end of the floor. I think it showed a little bit today. There are always things we could improve on, so we're going to continue to try to improve and grow. But I think we took a little step forward and we're going to keep going that way. BERNICE MOSBY: I think we did good on defensive end. Danielle came in off the bench and blocked shots and JB did good also. I think the last couple of days in practice was very intense for us. I mean, there's still a lot of things we need to improve on, like helping and rebounding. But I think we did a good job today and hopefully we can continue that tomorrow with Oklahoma. Q. This is for Jhasmin. Coach, you can second on this. Talk about the good, not so good about facing Oklahoma, the fact that you played them just not that long ago and didn't do so well. At the same time, you're facing them again. The good, not so good of facing them. JHASMIN PLAYER: As our coach said, the good is no one expects us to win. When no one expects you to win, you have nothing to lose. So we're just going to go out there and play as hard as we can. I mean, there's not a not so good in it. We know every team is going to come out here and compete against us every single night. They'll do the same thing. Tonight Kansas competed just like OU will tomorrow. Kansas doesn't have a Courtney Paris, but we'll compete tomorrow and night and try to stay ahead and stay close. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: She said it beautifully. JHASMIN PLAYER: Thank you, Coach. Q. Kim, for clarification, we have asked Knight why he always wears a red sweater. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: What did he tell you? Q. He didn't give us a good answer. But tomorrow night how tough is it to play in this environment? Had 10,000 here tonight. I assume it will be more tomorrow night. How tough is that considering they're tough enough on a neutral court? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: This really isn't a neutral court to them. And the tough part is not that your kids are affected by it. It's how it gives them a sense of energy and boost and when they're fatigued maybe they'll make that shot instead of shooting short or when they need a defensive stop or big rebound. When you've got that much noise and that many people cheering for you, I think it just gives you a little bit extra effort. More than anything, it's like with any home court. And I think that's probably the only disadvantage is that you're outnumbered fan-wise. Q. Is that particularly relevant in a tournament back to back days or not? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: I don't know that -- Q. Seemed like energy would matter more in a tournament where you don't have breaks. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: They're so good. I don't know that fatigue or anything like that plays a factor for those guys. They've got enough depth and people coming off the bench that fatigue is not going to matter. Q. Coach, did fatigue matter for Kansas tonight? Did they seem like a tired team having played -- COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: I don't know. I was so focused on our team and I'm not sure I can answer that. Q. Kim, you talked about being able to extend leads at times. Freshman kind of struggled a little down the stretch. Is it good to find something to kind of build on even if it's a negative thing? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: I thought, Jerry, I'm used to your negative questions. You live in the same town. I didn't think there was anything negative about our freshman play tonight. I thought everything they did was a positive. If you look at the staff, I thought they just took a very few bad shots. I thought they gave up very few rebounds I thought everything they did with the exception of Latara. She couldn't get in the flow. She still did some good things out there tonight. Q. Can you talk about the freshmen, how nice was it for them to be able to cut their teeth in a post-season setting tonight? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: The more experience, the more play, the more experience, the better we become and the better they become, and it was good for them. It was good they got in there early. It was good that they did some things early to become confident. And it was good everybody got to play. Q. Kim, there's absolutely no appropriate time for this question. But there were some developments today, your name is going to be connected to the LSU job. Can you comment on whether you would be interested at all in that vacancy? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: There's a lot of jobs open. Florida is open. Arkansas is open. LSU is open. All I know is what you guys report. End of FastScripts |
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